(Re) Birth of a Nation

 ***Below is an essay I wrote for an oral history assignment in one of my education courses at UNC.  I conducted interviews in the Spring Semester of 2004.  In hindsight, I should have provided more background information for my interviewees and added my own positionality.  At any rate Mrs. Sherry Gray was the librarian during my time as a student at Chatham Central (1996-2000).  John Taylor is my uncle, and Ronald is my dad.  I captured their stories of moving from historically black J.S. Waters, a K-12 school, to historically segregated Chatham Central High School (CCHS), located in Bear Creek, NC. Chris Taylor is my first cousin, and he illuminated experiences at CCHS in the late 90s.*** In traveling back in time to Chatham Central High School nineteen hundred and sixty-nine, the year of integration, I expected to find a history of race riots, several protests, and perhaps even a couple of discrimination stories.  To my surprise, I found none of the...